Ripples
by Rotture
Summary: A Little Mermaid AU story. An idea turned writing exercise turned story. A 'what if' idea, and the following changes that result from the point of divergence. Ariel centric. Long summary inside.
1. Prologue

**A Case Study of Character Developement borrowing the Universe of Disney's "The Little Mermaid"**

Disclaimer: The characters and settings in this story belong to Disney's 'The Little Mermaid'. I make no claims to ownership and make no profit off this work beyond personal satisfaction.**  
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**Long summary: **

At the start of the movie, Ariel is a young princess, intelligent, overflowing with a sense of wonder and curiosity. She wants nothing more than to leave the confinement of the castle, her home, to go out and explore and _learn things_.

Then she meets Eric, and becomes completely infatuated with him. She is just following the same mistake as so many young girls in countless times and culture have made before- believing it's true love, she chases after him. A whole mess of problems follow along to mess up her whole life, and when all is said and done, they marry, and for the rest of her life, her personal desires, aspirations, goals, all become second to her relationship with Eric. Her world is centered around Eric, and her character stagnates until she dies.

But what if she never had to rescue Eric during that storm, never had to bring him back to shore? What if she never got a chance to meet him, never got a chance to be infatuated? This is the story about the ripples of change that emanate out from that one small divergence.

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><p><strong>Prologue – the point of divergence<strong>

Eric laughed heartily as his dog, Max, tripped a dancing sailor, only for the sailor to get back up and join another sailor in a happy jig on top of a table. This was turning out to be quite the birthday celebration, and they hadn't even broken out the fireworks yet. The night was just getting started.

"Ah! Excuse me! Prince Eric!" Eric turned to the source of the voice to see the ship's navigator looking worried and nervous for some reason.

"Timothy, my friend! Why the long face? This is a party!" Eric wrapped an arm around the skittish young man, gesturing towards the festivities with the other.

"Ah, sir, you see, that's what I needed to talk to you about… It looks like there is a bad storm coming in. We need to head back to shore!" The navigator, Timothy, blurted the last sentence out all in a rush. A nearby, sailor, overhearing this, started to grumble.

"Is it that bad?"

"Well, sir, we might be able to make it through. This ship and her sailors are plenty experienced, but I'm sure none of them would be willing to risk your safety, your Majesty. I recommend immediately heading back to shore."

Hearing this, Eric sighed, but decided not to put up a fuss. "Well, if that is what you believe, then we better head back."

The captain, who had been alerted to the storm before Timothy went to talk to Eric, turned around to yell at his crew. "You heard him, men! Change course for land! Full speed back to shore!"

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><p>"Ariel," Sebastian soothed, "you're under a lot of pressure down here. Come with me, I'll take you home and get you something warm to drink. We can talk about this trouble in the morning." With that said, he grabbed her arm, dragging her back towards the castle, Ariel not putting up more than token resistance. Once they returned to the castle, Sebastian took Ariel back to her room, and did as promised before setting her to bed.<p>

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><p>And so the two never met, and 'destiny' and 'infatuation' were avoided, and so the ripples in time move outward, slowly turning to waves.<p>

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><p><strong>an: (skip this if you want, just some fun background details, nothing important)** Okay, so this is a weird story with a weird backstory. I first came up with this idea when talking to my main brochacho, Shea, the other day. We were talking about how smart Ariel seemed at the start of the movie, and how when she met Eric, a bunch of crazy bs happened that just completely messed up her whole life. Someone pointed out 'oh hey, but she got her happily ever after once she got through all that stuff, yeah?' and then we got on the subject of just _what_ happily ever after means, specifically for Ariel. Suddenly we realized her happily ever after wasn't really happy at all. She got married to Prince Eric, focused her entire life on becoming a good wife to him, serving him, and loving him, then giving birth to his child, and focusing on being a good mother. What the hell? No personal satisfaction, no mention of her intelligence or curiosity, nothing about WHO she is- it's like that kind of thing is unimportant once a relationship is dangled before her eyes. So I decided to do a writing exercise on 'what if ariel never met eric that day' and that writing exercise turned into a story which was fleshed out into a full length novel.  
>At that point of course I figured I should probably post it on here. Don't know how many people will read this, seeing as how it is in the Little Mermaid category, not something more popular like Harry Potter, Naruto, or that type thing, but here goes!<p>

This 'chapter' is more of a teaser than anything else, just writing out the point of divergence here. I assure you, all the real chapters will be longer.

Well anyway, review and tell me what you think!


	2. Chapter 1

**a/n:** This chapter was brought to you by coffee. Any further author's notes will be at the bottom.

**Chapter One – Her journey begins… slowly.**

Ariel woke with a yawn, swimming out of her bedroom to the cool blue colored shared living room that some of her sisters already inhabited. Waving in greeting to the pink-tailed Alana, Ariel sat down in front of one of the many vanity mirrors in the room. Brushing out the tangles in her long hair, a full time job in her opinion, she thought back to Sebastian's promise from the night before. Today, she would talk with him about her secret cave, and more importantly, her special treasures hidden inside said cave. '_I **have** to convince him not to tell Daddy… who knows what he would do if he found out!' _She hummed worriedly as two more of her sisters, this time Adella and Arista, swam into the room.

Adella, noticing Ariel's troubled expression, called out to her. "Little sister, what's wrong? You seem upset…" Ariel turned and forced a smile on her face as she replied to her brunette sister's question.

"Oh it's nothing Adella, just preparing myself for an upcoming lecture from Sebastian…"

"Is he still mad about you missing the concert?" Arista piped up at her reply. "You know, it was pretty embarrassing for all of us when you didn't show…" The blonde beauty adopted a mock stern glare, which melted almost immediately into a slight giggle. "It's okay, though, we forgive you. Everyone knows by now that you would rather run off on your silly little adventures than sit through rehearsal."

"Even if it is a waste of talent…" Attina whispered to the other princesses on the other side of the room, too low for the youngest of them to hear.

"Hey, speak for yourself Arista!" Adrina chimed in angrily from the corner of a vanity, crossing her arms over her chest. "I had invited that cute merman I've been talking to lately to that concert! And then it was cancelled halfway through because _dear little Ariel _wants to go play explorer? How mortifying!"

Ariel was taken aback by this. "I'm sorry, Adrina! I had no idea… I didn't realize how my missing the concert would affect all of you! To tell the truth, I hadn't realized the concert was yesterday. Please forgive me?" The last part came out as a small plea, but the angry purple-tailed blonde just turned away and swam out of the room with a 'Humph!' for good measure. Ariel turned to her other sisters worriedly.

Seeing the look, Adella patted Ariel on the shoulder. "It's okay Ariel, none of the rest of us are mad, and Adrina will get over herself soon enough. But you better go find Sebastian now. It wouldn't do to keep him waiting when he's already upset with you." She made a little shooing motion, and Ariel jumped in realization, before nodding and swimming off out of the room.

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><p>Ariel swam through the halls, occasionally stopping and asking random passerby's if they had seen Sebastian, without much success. Finally she found one of the royal messengers, a small seahorse, who pointed her in the right direction. "I think I saw him heading for the music wing. He was muttering something about a new concert and 'troublesome little girls'," the messenger said knowingly, before heading on his way.<p>

Choosing to ignore the last part, Ariel changed directions and started heading towards the music hall. Several hallways and even more wrong rooms later, she finally found him in front of a desk, working on composing a new musical piece. "Ah, Sebastian…" she began in a hesitant voice.

"Ariel," the crab acknowledged, putting down his work before turning to look at her. "Here's da deal I am willing to make," Ariel noticeably perked up, causing a chuckle to escape from Sebastian. "I could go right to da king, tell him about your stash of human t'ings, an' he would probably force you ta get rid of it all, or else get rid a' it himself."

"No, please Sebastian, you can't!" Ariel interrupted desperately.

"Let me finish, please." Sebastian continued, seeming unimpressed. "I am planning a new concert, a musical. Like da last one was supposed ta be, dis one is will be your new musical debut. You will come ta each and every rehearsal, and you WILL be at da concert dis time. You will not go to da surface any more, and you will not be going to dese sunken ships-" Ariel opened her mouth to protest, but Sebastian hurried on before she could, "WIT'OUT permission. Heaven knows I can't stop you from going completely. But you will not be goin' off whenever you feel like it. You have responsibilities here, and I won't have you skipping out on dem. Dis is more den reasonable, Ariel, don't you agree?"

"So… I just have to behave myself and do what I'm supposed to, and you won't tell Daddy about my treasures?" Ariel asked, relieved. This deal didn't seem bad at all compared to the consequences if she didn't agree, not to mention all the horrible scenarios she had thought up on the way over here. She was upset about not being allowed to go to the surface and having her trips to find treasure restricted, but she was sure she could sneak off from time to time. _'If Daddy found out about all my treasure, he would probably keep me locked in the castle anyway. I would never get a chance to find out more about humans and the world above. This is the better deal for sure!'_

"Ariel…" Sebastian looked at her with a threat in his eyes. "Don't try and test my limits. Do what I tell you and no less, an' dis situation can work out favorably for bot' of us. Are we agreed?" He stuck out his claw to shake.

"Yes Sebastian, I understand. And yes, I'll do what you said! Thank you for understanding!" Ariel took his hand, shaking it to seal the deal, before turning to go find Flounder and share the good news.

"Wait, Ariel! Rehearsals for da next concert will start in two weeks! Don't forget our deal by den!" Sebastian called out the door to her quickly retreating figure, but when she gave no indication she heard, he sighed and closed the door before returning to his desk. "I'm gettin' too old for dis…" he muttered, going back to work.

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><p><em>A few months later…<em>

"I must say, Sebastian, I don't know what you did, but assigning you to watch Ariel and get her behavior under control has worked wonders! And this concert was your best yet!" King Triton boomed out in a proud voice. Ariel's second debut concert had just wrapped up with no problems, infinitely more successful than the first. Merfolk were chatting with each other happily as they loitered around the concert hall. Ariel and her sisters were all still taking care of things backstage, sans Adrina, who seemed to be flirting with a young, fit, brown haired merman. King Triton noted with a nod of satisfaction that he was the son of an acquaintance of his. He would have a talk with the boy's father if anything further developed between the two. It wouldn't do for his dear daughter to be hurt, after all.

"Ah, you are too kind, my king!" Sebastian replied bashfully, rubbing his claw on the back of his head even as his chest puffed out with pride. "Oh look, here comes our star now!" And as if on cue, Ariel came swimming up to the pair.

"Hi Daddy! Did you like my performance?" She kissed his cheek in greeting as she settled in next to him. The past few months had been challenging, in that it was hard for her not to go running off when rehearsals were _so dreadfully dull,_ but it had helped her learn a lesson in patience, and her father still had no idea about her treasure cave. She still hadn't found a chance to run off to the surface for a bit, though she had bribed Flounder to do so a few weeks into her deal with Sebastian to let Scuttle know she wouldn't be able to come around for a while.

"Of course, my little Ariel! You sang most beautifully. Why, it brought a tear to my eye!" Triton pantomimed wiping a tear from his eye.

"Oh Daddy, stop it!" Ariel giggled at his antics. "Hey, have you seen Flounder by any chance?"

"I think I see him waiting for you over by the stage. But surely you don't plan to run off with him right now, do you? I had a whole party planned for you!" King Triton informed her, sounding disappointed.

"Oh, well…" Behind Triton, Sebastian coughed meaningfully. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to stay, since you did go to all that trouble for me, Daddy. I'll go let Flounder know." Ariel flashed her father a quick smile before flitting off towards the stage.

"Like I was saying Sebastian, I don't know how you did it, but I'm not complaining." Triton patted the small crab on the back, accidentally sending him flying forward to land skidding on the sand floor. "Whoops! Are you alright Sebastian?"

"I'm alright your Majesty." Sebastian replied, coughing up some sand that he swallowed in his impromptu skid. "It's fine."

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><p>"-so we're going to have to hold off on that new shipwreck we found for a while. I know, I'm disappointed too, but you know we gotta be careful to do what Sebastian says, and he doesn't want me to skip this party. We can't go afterwards, it would be too dark, but maybe tomorrow… wait no, we have art lessons, then, and Madam Furie is way too strict for me to talk her into letting me leave early, let alone skip altogether… And then after that is when the party of nobles from the Olympia kingdom across the sea from here gets here, and I'll be spending the next few weeks entertaining the nobles and listening to those boring political talks and then…. But maybe-" Ariel rambled on to Flounder as they swam through the remaining crowd in the concert hall back towards the king and Sebastian, Flounder occasionally sarcastically lamenting the fact that they couldn't go have another dangerous adventure immediately. When they reached the pair, Ariel finally trailed off so she didn't say anything incriminating in front of her father.<p>

"Hello your Majesty," Flounder greeted politely, "Sebastian."

The king nodded in acknowledgement, before turning to his youngest daughter. "Ariel, why don't you go on back to your rooms for now and get ready for the party? I'm sure your sisters have already headed back that way. When you're ready, head down to the banquet hall, that's where the party is being held, of course."

"Okay Daddy! I'll see you in a bit then." Ariel kissed his cheek again, and then headed off, dragging Flounder along for the ride.

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><p>Ariel sighed before forcing another smile on her face as yet another noble, a rather rotund trumpet fish whose name she didn't quite care enough to remember, complimented her on her performance. This party was so stuffy and boring, it was almost worse than her music rehearsals. <em>'Oh well, this is the price I have to pay to keep my treasures. Until I can find a way to learn more about the humans, I'll have to deal with this sort of thing… I just gotta have patience…' <em>She watched Flounder help himself to some _hor d'oeuvres,_ surprisingly at ease with the situation.

Discretely stifling a yawn behind her hand, Ariel perked up as she was struck with inspiration. Her mind made up, she started to make her way through the crowd, having to do some quick maneuvering to avoid some of the party guests. She scanned the crowd for a flash of white and gold, finally locating and changing course towards her father.

King Triton was talking about the recent concert with a few acquaintances of his when he spotted Ariel swimming towards him. "Ah, and here's my little Angelfish now! How are you enjoying the party, dear?" He smiled at her, the wrinkles of his face exaggerating the expression as they often did.

"Oh, I'm quite enjoying myself, Daddy. Thank you for throwing this party for me. But, well…" She trailed off, seemingly hesitant.

"What is it, Ariel? Is something wrong?" Worry was immediately prevalent in his features.

"It's nothing Daddy, I'm just a bit tired from the concert." She waved him off before another yawn forced its way out of her throat as she quickly and bashfully covered her mouth. "Oh! I'm sorry abou- -" another yawn broke up her words, "-t that."

"Oh dear, I did not even consider-" Triton mumbled mostly to himself, before speaking up. "Why don't you retire early tonight? I'm sure you've had a long and tiring day. No one here will begrudge you some rest." Ariel smiled gratefully before thanking him and swimming back into the crowd.

Smiling at the success of her plan, she looked around for Flounder. It took about ten minutes before she finally found him off to the side of the large, decadent room. "Hey Flounder, I got permission from Daddy to leave already, so let's split! It's still early enough to go explore that new shipwreck! We won't have as much time as usual, and we'll have to be sure to head back before too long, but this way we won't have to wait another two weeks before checking it out! Isn't that great?" Ariel explained, but she was already dragging him along away from the party.

Already used to this by now, Flounder smiled a bit forcedly, before responding. "Yeah… Great… We wouldn't want to miss out on such an… exciting… opportunity, after all…" By this point his smile had stiffened into a grimace

Ariel continued enthusiastically, apparently ignoring Flounder's lack of enthusiasm. "Well first we have to run by my room to grab my bag in case I find any new treasure, which works out well since that's where Daddy thinks I'm headed anyway, so if anyone sees us and say anything to him, he'll just think I was heading to bed! It all works out." She smiled brightly, satisfied that her plan was flawless.

The two made quick time to the tower containing the living quarters of all seven princesses, mostly due to Flounder having to match Ariel's pace or get left behind, as usual. Quickly ducking behind the seaweed curtain hiding her bedroom from view, she grabbed the bag she had used for the past several years and headed back out, deciding not to waste any time. So with a quick "Let's go!" to Flounder, she shot out the tower window, making her way out of the city while the main population of the castle, and most importantly, Sebastian, were distracted by the party.

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><p>"Here it is, Flounder! Isn't it amazing?" Ariel gushed enthusiastically, wasting no time in searching for an entrance to the intact part of the ship, which amounted to roughly half of the original, the other half in barely recognizable chunks, ground down and smashed against rocks by unforgiving ocean currents.<p>

"Yeah, sure," Flounder replied blandly, jumping when a wooden beam dislodged suddenly from the top of a large rock to fall to the ocean floor. "Just like all the other amazing shipwrecks we've been to. A practice which usually ends in disaster, by the way!"

"Yeah, yeah. Geez, you're such a guppy, Flounder! Nothing's gonna happen!" Ariel sighed, not seeing any easy way into the intact part of the ship, she resigned herself to searching through the wreckage outside, and waiting to look around inside until she could come back at a later point and spend more time exploring. "Haven't we always made it out of whatever situation we get into safely?"

She turned away from the main part of the wreckage, her long red hair flowing out behind her, some tangles hooking on a crack in part of the wood without her notice- that is, until she tried to swim away, only for her head to be yanked back painfully. "Ow! Oh geez… Flounder, help me untangle this!" She cried out as she turned to try and free her trapped hair, with some difficulty as her range of motion was a bit limited in this position. Flounder swam over, but ended up just staring helplessly, as there was nothing he could do. Ariel looked around, spying a small broken piece of a plank nearby. "Hey Flounder, grab that!" she directed, pointing to it. Once the small yellow fish had retrieved it for her, she jammed it into the crack, wiggling it back and forth until the crack widened, deepened, and finally a whole piece of the ship cracked off, freeing her hair.

"I guess having your hair loose while exploring isn't a very good idea, huh Ariel?" Flounder pointed out once she was clear of the ship.

"I guess not… Maybe I should put it up from now on when we go out…" Ariel chuckled ruefully before going back to the search.

She sifted through the sand and useless pieces of wood, looking for something that jumped out at her. She couldn't see anything shining in the sand, but that didn't mean much. Digging through one pile of wreckage, she chanced upon a particularly odd piece of wood. It was a short rectangular piece of the ship, obviously previously part of a much larger piece, with odd black lines running along it. Ariel couldn't quite figure out what the purpose was, but she was sure it was something interesting! _'I'll take it back with me for now, and ask Scuttle about it when I get the chance…'_ Out loud Ariel called over to Flounder who was hovering nervously nearby. "Hey Flounder, check this out! I found something!" She held it up to him as he swam closer, before shoving it into her bag. "Did you see anything over there?"

"No Ariel, sorry. But it's getting dark! I think we should head back for now…" Flounder motioned with his head towards the growing darkness, as if to prove his point.

Ariel looked disappointed, but simply said, "I guess you're right. We better get back before anyone realizes I'm not there." She looked around regretfully, but consoled herself with the fact that she had at least found _something_. With that in mind, she and Flounder made their way back to Atlantis, stopping by her hidden cavern to drop off her new discovery before heading into the city where they parted ways.

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><p>Swimming back to the tower with her bedroom, the young princess stopped frequently, looking around for anyone who might see her, careful not to get caught. She didn't want to make the same mistake twice, after all. Seeing that it was clear, Ariel finally swam in the bedroom window and startled getting ready for bed. Grabbing her seashell comb off a shelf, she brushed the tangles out of her hair, wincing as she remembered getting stuck earlier. She mentally reinforced her decision to pin her hair back in the future before settling into bed, unaware of the departure of her hidden watchers- a pair of eels with one glowing yellow eye each.<p>

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><p><strong>an:** Well, here's the first real chapter of Ripples, with many more to come! Hope you enjoyed! Now for a long author's note that you can skip if you really want, but might want to read.

It was pointed out to me in a review that I apparently came off as hating Eric, and was a bit offensive in my writing. This really isn't the case, and I have gone back and edited out the problem areas. I wanted to let you know, the Little Mermaid is one of my favorite children's movies. I grew up watching it constantly as a kid, and I really have no problem with the way the story was told, seeing as how it WAS a kid's movie. Also, I will admit that I had a crush on Prince Eric from ages 5 to 8, so I definitely don't hate him. This is just the result of me looking at the movie as a serious story from the eyes of an adult. Well…. I wouldn't describe myself as an adult quite yet. How about 'without the eyes of a child' or 'from the eyes of a critic'? Anyway, this is all just a story for fun, so I apologize if I offended any readers last chapter.

That brings me to another point: I have no beta reader, or anyone who looks at this before you see it, so if you find any problems or mistakes, feel free to tell me, and I will probably fix them right away. I love critique. So please tell me what you think about my story, good or bad. :^

That said, thank you guys for each and every review I get, and any future reviews. I do appreciate them. I'm not going to clog up the page by writing out reviewer names like some people do, when I've already gone and replied to your reviews, but I want you guys to know I appreciate them. (even if the review count is only 2 as of when I post this)

See you guys next chapter!

-Rot


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